Post COVID-19, our work life will never be the same. As we see the first signs of emerging from the Coronavirus lockdown and preparing for the return to the office, here's what you'll need to take into account before taking those first steps, operationally, and mentally.
4. Exit Strategy Goal:
Returning to company routine while keeping our employees and
work environment safe and healthy
Accommodate family and personal needs
Provide a flexible framework so employees can identify the best options
for their situation and adapt over time
Key to success: Agility. Constant adjustment and iteration while
maintaining our end goal.
5. Is it really necessary? Considerations
Employee Factors
➔ Risk group: Age and clinical
background
➔ Kids needing attention at home
➔ Public transportation dependency
➔ Commute
➔ Proper work environment at home
➔ Hygiene sensitivity and special needs
➔ Personal preference
Company Factors
➔ Risk of contagion
➔ Assessing cost of staying at home:
Productivity loss
Business impact
Psychological impact
➔ Assessing arrangements to comply
with the Purple Tag:
Office spacing
Prevention of gathering
7. Appoint a “Corona Officer”, and gather a team of thinking partners.
Determine which employees are interested in coming to the office, and in what
capacity. People over the age of 60 should refrain from entering the office.
If the # does not allow compliance with govt directives, split emps to two shifts
which will alternate daily or twice a day, or spread across different floors.
External visitors: It is recommended to refrain from having external visitors in the
office as much as possible. If a must: Limit the number of participants to the
minimum possible and meeting room size limitations.
Internal meetings: Hold online meetings as much as possible. In-office meetings
will be limited to 2 persons in a up to 20m room, if larger than more, up to 8
persons max, while keeping the 2m distance.
Workforce preparations (assuming a voluntary in-office policy)
8. Office Preparations
➔ Employees will check body temperature before entering the office and sign a
health statement (physical or Google Forms).
➔ The company will provide face masks, sanitizers, gloves. Wearing face masks
while in the office is mandatory, unless the employee is alone in the room, or
has partitions.
➔ Office cleaning and sanitizing will be enhanced during and after work hours.
➔ Seating arrangement: Spacing workstations 2m apart across the office and
between floors, installing partitions, spreading people across the office
according to shifts. Avoid using rooms with no windows.
➔ Keep windows open as much as possible.
11. Prevention of gathering
The cafeteria won't be allowed to have more than 2-3 people at the same
time (per cafeteria size).
Employees will eat lunch at their desks or in open areas, maintaining a 2m
distance.
Refraining from food sharing and passing of equipment between employees.
Using disposable dishes.
Complete isolation of working teams (within shifts).
If needed, create your own company-backed shared transportation for
employees who have trouble getting to the office (if essential).
12. More Prevention Measures
Couriers and delivery personnel should leave packages at the door, only a
designated person can sign for them.
Employees will be required to use masks and gloves when using coffee machines
and other public equipment.
Elevators will ride up to 1-2 people, according to size.
People will have many questions - make sure you constantly communicate
expectations and are responsive :)
Use Reminder stickers!
15. Global Disruption -
The World of Work Will Never Be the Same
➔ Working from home becomes the new normal
➔ The death of open space?
➔ Possibly less demand for office space?
➔ Organizations will ditch the notion of having a big office and revert back to a small-town
model of working in cluster offices with more remote work.
➔ “Skills over Geography” - Remote hiring of technical talent will become the norm, making
our tech talent pool more diverse, and our businesses and economy stronger
16. ➔ Blurring of the line between personal life and work life, an “always-on” mentality - For
employee-friendly companies, evening hours will ultimately revert to family or personal
time
➔ Higher preference for virtual meetings: Virtual meetings likely to increase, remote work no
exception
➔ Impact on employment situation: Potential shift toward more flexible and 'shared'
workforce - Freelancers, consultants, contractors
17. Open questions
Under these conditions, will people even want to come back to work?
Can we force people to come to the office? People who are more stressed, key
employees, etc.
How will the hybrid model work? How can we get better at it?
Adopting remote work in the long term - Y/N? What criteria to use?
What have we learned about ourselves? About the company culture?
What have we learned about our managers and employees?
Have the decisions we made stood the test of our values?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
18. Tools to help answer those questions
➔ Organizational survey - anonymous or not, learn how people feel, and where you need to
improve
➔ Round tables Zooms - Gather first hand information in groups, to make people feel they’re
not alone.
➔ 1:1s with as many employees as possible, to get the stuff you can only get on a 1:1.
➔ Periodic review (monthly?) of lessons learned from past weeks of remote work, takeaways
and new goals. First only Corona Team and leadership, and then to the whole company.
19. “In times of great uncertainty, the most critical skill is to be
able to adapt as conditions change. This is a kind of
ambidexterity: focusing on surviving in the current moment
while you also build toward thriving in a future that will look
different. To get there, successful leaders are creating and
holding space in organizations for people to be generative,
despite the challenging and stressful environment.”
Sarah Stein Greenberg,
executive director of the Stanford d.school
“
20. Helpful resources
חדרמצבנגיףהקורונה – התאחדותהתעשייניםבישראל
וובינרהמשךעבודהתחתלחץלשעתחירוםונוהלהמשכיותעסקית 23.04.2020 – התאחדותהתעשייניםבישראל
חזרהלשגרהבמקומותהעבודה – כיצדלקבלאתה " תוהסגול " ? – קרןזיו , משרדעו "ד
https://www.fastcompany.com/90486053/all-the-things-covid-19-will-change-forever-according-to-30-top-
experts?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-keep-your-team-motivated-remotely?ab=hero-main-text
Remember:
It might help to see what other companies are doing and learn from them, however every company is different,
and your job is to identify what is right for YOUR company.
Editor's Notes
Cushman & Wakefield has helped 10,000 organizations in China move nearly one million people back to work
Morphisec
The pandemic has resulted in what is effectively the largest WFH experiment ever conducted in human history.
COVID-19 has fast-forwarded the future of work by as much as a decade, as telecommuting and Zoom meetings with kids screaming in the background became a standard practice overnight.
we have now experienced a work-life integration which will change our perspectives and expectations of how we work in the future,
The COVID-19 experience will build our courage to adopt new patterns to fix antiquated processes.